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indifferently called the Scribes or the SERM. Lawyers. These men professed, as III. their names imply, to write, to study, and to expound the Law of Moses: but to this they had superadded many traditions of their Fathers, to which they ascribed nearly the same authority as to their written law. Thus they acted as Interpreters of the Law in both its branches of civil and religious economy, sometimes expounding it in their Councils, and sometimes teaching it in their Synagogues.

3. The administration of justice was committed to a Council of Elders. When the Children of Israel came out of Egypt, the whole direction of the State, whether ministerial or judicial, was in the hands of Moses. But on the prudent counsel of Jethro, who observed that he had a greater charge upon him than he could long sustain, he chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands and rulers of hundreds and rulers of fifties and rulers of tens: and they judged the people at all seasons: the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small

matter

SERM. matter they judged themselves. NotIII. withstanding this relief, he had soon occasion to complain, that the charge which he still reserved was too great a burden for one man to support. Hereupon he was directed by God himself to chuse seventy Elders out of the people to assist him in the government. To the first of these appointments we may ascribe the origin of the rural or provincial Elders, who were dispersed in their several orders through the Tribes and Cities of Israel: and to the second we may refer the origin of the chief or national Council of Elders, which was stationed in Jerusalem, and not only judged in more important concerns, but also received appeals from all subordinate or provincial Councils. In this superior Court we may trace the Institution, more distinctly known after the return from the Babylonian bondage, of the Sanhedrim or Council of Elders, in whom was invested a great portion both of the Civil and the Criminal Justice of the Jews, while they had Princes of their own: and when they were fallen under

f Exod. xviii. 25, 26.

8 Numb. xi. 16, &c.

the

the dominion of the Romans, though SERM, their authority was abridged in the ad- III. ministration of Criminal justice, they

were left in possession of their ancient Civil jurisdiction.

During the Maccabean government there arose the two opposite Sects of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.-The Pharisees were distinguished or separated from the common people, as the term implies in their original tongue, by an extraordinary zeal for the Law of Moses, as also for the Traditions of their Fathers, to which they ascribed almost as implicit an authority as to the Law itself. And this zeal they affected to display by a scrupulous and ostentatious attention to the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic worship. Hence we find them so exact in their ablutions, and so punctual in their payment of tithes, even of the most common herbs. Thus in the exteriors of their duty they were always very strict. Yet according to the character, which they bear in the gospel, they were far from possessing the essentials of religion: they gave alms without charity, they made long prayers without devotion, and they fasted without contrition and repentance. While punctual

SERM. punctual in giving tithes, they forgot III. the claims of judgement, mercy, and faith while they had the form of godliness, they denied the power thereof; and while they yielded the homage of the body, they neglected the sacrifice

of the heart.

The Sadducees differed from them in some of the more important articles of faith. They disclaimed all traditional and oral law. And though they paid some deference to the book of Psalms and to the Prophets, yet they limited the divine authority of the scriptures to the books of Moses. In thus rejecting so considerable a portion of holy writ, they also rejected some of the essential articles of scriptural revelation. For not finding in the scriptures, which they acknowledged, any positive assertion of a future state, or a state of separate existence for the departed soul, they said there was no Reurrection, neither Angel, nor Spirit. When they were thus lax in their principles, we need not wonder that they were also loose in their practice. The Sect however was comparatively small, though it gained some weight from the quality of its members, as it compre

hended

hended several of the most powerful SERM, and opulent among the people,

Such were the different Orders, Professions, or Sects among the Jews, as they appeared in our Saviour's day, and as they are frequently mentioned in the gospel History. From the united evidence of all the Evangelists we may collect this general feature of their character, still more predominant in those of superior rank and opulence and authority, that while they encouraged a presumptuous opinion of themselves, they also entertained an uncharitable sentiment of others. Not contented with regarding the whole Heathen world as out of the pale of God's promises and abandoned of the care and grace of heaven, they contracted their charity within a still narrower compass than their own civil polity or profession of faith. For we find them too ready to treat with contempt and neglect the poorer orders of the people, particularly such as they supposed deficient in the observances of the Law. All such they opprobriously distinguished by the name of Sinners: and instead of being guides to the blind and instructors of the ignorant, as they professed themselves to be, they shut

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